


With a Little Help from My Friends

by Ijustwannaread



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Men Being Dense, Sickfic, Slice of Life, blink and you miss it plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 03:30:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9158206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ijustwannaread/pseuds/Ijustwannaread
Summary: In which Danny maybe has the flu, Steve definitely wants to help, and criminals continue to do crime regardless.





	

**Author's Note:**

> WELL NOW, I have outdone myself this time. Lost all chill and wrote the most gratuitous shit of my existence. And you know what, I'm not sorry.

Steve McGarrett should at least make an attempt to look less excited at the prospect of the impending violent drug bust that is about to go down, Danny thought to himself darkly. The keys to Danny’s Camaro glinted mockingly in Steve’s hands as he strode out of the Five-0 Headquarters without a backwards glance, and Danny couldn’t dredge up the usual amount of begrudging preparedness to take on the particular shit-show that he was smart enough to know was about to go down. It felt as though his newly high-risk job and the late nights were finally catching up to him, being the normal variety of human, as opposed to Super SEAL Steve. And that was because the universe was unfair, but at least Danny knew he could unleash some high quality bitching to settle the score.

Danny forced himself to follow Steve, squinting in the dim lights of the hallway against a headache, feeling cynical. So, the usual.

Twenty minutes later found them speeding across the side of a cliff chasing after the surprisingly savvy crack heads. Danny’s headache had increased partially due to sheer annoyance at the ridiculous situations Steve managed to find.

“We are driving towards the side of a cliff, Steve. A cliff. Do you see this? I can’t be the only one seeing this--”

Steve’s eye roll in no way diverted his driving of the car off of its breakneck speed or trajectory. 

“I’m gonna box them in this way, don’t worry about it,” He said quickly.

“Oh, is that before or after we drive off the side of a mountain?” Danny shot back at him.

“The brakes in this car are great, if you could just untwist your panties it’ll be over--”

“Oh, so now you’re going to school me about my own car’s fucking breaks, fantastic!” That statement got a brief, startled glance towards the passenger side, which Danny missed because he was too busy strategically keeping his eyes at half mast so that the blinding Hawaiian sun didn’t make him feel like an icepick was jabbing solidly through both eye sockets. Danny didn’t often swear, fatherhood being just one of many reasons that he preferred to call his partner unhinged rather than a straight-up dick.

Steve forgot this quickly, because apparently the two guys they were chasing didn’t have such great breaks or knowledge of the road, and they ended up disappearing at the next sharp turn.

Danny had no idea how he could feel such an intense combination of fear, annoyance, and pain in one moment without exploding.

It took three hours before Five-0 could declare that their last two leads on their latest case had died a certain demise in the wreckage a hundred feet below the cliff’s edge. Steve and Danny drove back to headquarters at seventy miles per hour, which felt like thirty after their recent chase. Danny didn’t even feel vaguely bad about taking a few ibuprofen out of his glove box and dry swallowing them. Steve predictably wouldn’t let it pass.

“What’s this? Your knee bothering you?” It wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy tone, more like the tone you’d use while demanding to know who broke all the eggs while taking in the groceries.

“Just a stress headache from dealing with all of your little shenanigans,” Danny retorted, wishing Steve wasn’t driving so that he could strangle him without causing a five-car pileup.

Steve smirked, the bastard.

“Oh, is that why you’ve been extra pissy today, princess?” Steve jibed; he was clearly satisfied to know his partner wasn’t still a gimp, which would mess with his future stunts.

“Haha, princess? Very funny, that’s good,” Danny returned, and then didn’t speak for the rest of the ride.

The rest of the day passed in a haze. Kono and Chin salvaged the case with a lucky new angle, and they managed to make some progress. Still, they ended up with more paperwork than they knew what to do with, especially thanks to the two new bodies they needed to account for thanks to Steve’s cowboy law enforcement.

The really sad part, though, is that it ended up being the best day of Danny’s week. Each successive day, he woke up drenched in sweat and more exhausted than the previous morning. He even began to briefly wonder if it was a belated depression he was sinking into as a result of his move hundreds of miles away from his real home. When the weekend arrived with another case miraculously closed, he took all of his paperwork home with him before giving an admittedly half-baked excuse about having Grace that weekend and wanting to do spend as much time with her as possible. He had a sneaking suspicion that his incredibly observant team had already memorized his schedule with Grace, but he was too tired to care.

When Danny got back to his apartment on Friday night, he collapsed on his bed and didn’t open his eyes again until eleven pm on Saturday.

By Wednesday of the next week, Steve thought he had his partner figured out. He’d been strangely quiet and distant, and hardly contributed to the conversation unless he was under scrutiny. Steve couldn’t get the image of Danny sleeping with his ex-wife nestled familiarly into his shoulder out of his mind. He figured their complicated relationship might be distracting Danny. Something had his Navy SEAL instincts tingling, at least.

“Boss, we’ve got a case,” Kono’s voice broke him sharply from his glazed over partial focus on the indeterminable document that had wound up on his desk. She gave him a knowing smirk as he blinked blankly at the paper before leaping up eagerly.

“Perfect,” He said, already halfway out the door.

“You want to wake up Rip Van Winkle and tell him to get out here?” She asked over her shoulder.

“What?” Steve’s confusion only lasted a moment, before Kono pointed to Danny’s office, where the man’s head was pillowed in his arms in a nest of unfinished paperwork. They exchanged bemused looks.

“Course,” Steve said before jogging slightly to Danny’s office.

“Hey!” He yelled lightly, kicking the leg of the detective’s desk.  Danny’s head shot up immediately, and he looked around the room, confused. He looked so much like a newborn baby horse that Steve had to try not to laugh. Danny’s eyes finally locked on Steve and he groaned.

“You been moonlighting as a mall cop or something? Cause you look like you haven’t slept nights in a while,” Steve prodded at Danny, surprising himself slightly by how close his joking assessment came to the mark. He was almost waiting for Danny to admit that he was spending more time with his ex-wife, after hours, to explain his recent tiredness. He was usually fairly forthcoming with details of his love life, or lack thereof.

“Nah, that’d just be relaxing after this job,” Danny replied. Steve was surprised by the marked lack of heat or forethought behind his response. Without thinking, he grabbed Danny’s shoulder before he left to go to the main room.

“Hey, man, you good?” He asked seriously, feeling marginally awkward about it. Danny just blew out a laugh and put on a smile that looked painful to Steve.

“Yeah, babe. Peachy. Just some of us normal humans can’t get up in the morning at 6 am, swim ten miles and be ultra perky. Some of us need coffee first,” Danny ground out, barely looking at Steve. Steve narrowed his eyes, but followed him out.

Although the week completed without incident, Steve, as well as Kono and Chin noticed the mood around Five-0 was heavier, suspicious.

Steve was adding some spinach into a smoothie for a morning post-run snack at ten on a Saturday morning while contemplating repainting the porch, when his cellphone rang. He started the blender and prayed that it wasn’t Chin telling him some random grisly murder had taken place, because he really couldn’t handle the chipped paint on his railings anymore. He left the kitchen with the phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder, uttered a sharp “McGarrett.”

“Uncle Steve?” It was Grace, unmistakable, but quiet and nervous sounding over the sound of the blender next room. In seconds, Steve gripped the phone in one hand while clicking of the blender, suddenly rife with adrenaline that he didn’t have a cause for yet.

“Grace? Grace, what’s wrong?” His heart thumped while he waited.

“It’s just…” She hesitated. “Danno won’t get up this morning, and he said we were going to go to the beach today, but he hasn’t…” She trailed off, sounding unsure again, or close to tears. Steve couldn’t tell on the phone, but he was already putting his truck into gear ready to go over to Danny’s place. Luckily, he lived close to Danny’s most recent apartment. He didn’t know how to proceed in the situation, whether to call an ambulance or whether his partner just needed to sleep in longer than his impatient daughter could handle.

“Grace, listen to me, can you--”   

“Wait, Uncle Steve, I can hear--” She was cut off abruptly, leaving Steve more confused than ever. Steve just floored it until he could jam his key unceremoniously into Danny’s apartment door, hoping that it was just Grace being a little kid rather than the scenarios he was envisioning.

“Grace? Danny?” He called, taking in the typical childhood detritus strewn about the front room, but no sign of either resident of said house.

“Uncle Steve!” Grace’s voice floated from the next room, and she quickly darted towards Steve.

“Gracie, where’s your dad?” Steve said, forgoing pleasantries.

“Danno’s awake now, but he’s kinda being silly,” Grace told him simply, and pulled him unceremoniously into Danny’s dark room. Danny was perched on the edge of his bed, his elbows on his knees and his head resting on his palms. The floor creaked as Steve and Grace came in, and he turned in head disconcertingly slowly at the noise.

“Steve? What- do we have a case?” He asked slowly, confused.  Steve’s heart, which hadn’t stopped pounding, constricted.  Grace beat him to a response.

“Danno I told you!” This seemed to strike a chord with Danny, who appeared suddenly more alert.

“Oh, right, Monkey. I must have been sleeping. I was going to make us pancakes. Why don’t you go get out the ingredients and a big bowl?” Danny pointed Grace out of the room. She left slowly, and Steve, taking the hint, shut the door and flicked on the light.

“Jesus,” He stated baldly, taking in Danny, with his simple t-shirt and sweats, looking like he hadn’t slept in days. In the unforgiving bedroom light, he could see that Danny’s glands looked painfully enlarged on his neck.

“Okay, give me one good reason not to drag your ass to the ER right now,” Steve asked. He was mentally kicking himself for not telling Danny to go home the second he found him napping at this desk.

Danny opened his mouth immediately, but then groaned softly and put his head back in his hands.

“I don’t have a good answer for that,” He muttered, defeated.

“Then it’s settled,” Steve said definitively, momentarily relieved that Danny was being reasonable. He still felt like he was just trying to keep his head above water. Hostage situations and down and dirty hand-to-hand combat he could handle, but this? No, unknown medical issues were not his forte.

“You take anything yet?” He asked, kneeling down next to Danny, who, worryingly, still hadn’t moved an inch.

“Yeah, no, not since…uh…” Danny squinted at his clock and swallowed with a wince, but Steve was already halfway to the bathroom to rifle through his medicine cabinet. Steve rolled his eyes when he realized that, despite the seemingly large assortment, the vast majority of the bottles in the cabinet were children’s medications. He grabbed the lone, mostly empty Tylenol and considered it would have to be good enough. When he strode back into the room, he was surprised to find Danny already half dressed, struggling to button one of his ridiculously formal shirts with clumsy hands.

“Woah, what’re you doing?” Steve demanded, dropping the Tylenol onto the bed. “Look, I promised my daughter pancakes this morning, I don’t want to freak her

out with all of this,” he broke off, gesturing vaguely to his uncharacteristically disheveled appearance. Steve was briefly torn between admiration for Danny’s dedication to parenting and his own unprecedented level of frustration at their predicament. He took a moment to blow air out of his nose like a bull ready to charge a man.

“Alright. Okay. Grace was right, you are being… silly. You are not making pancakes. You are putting on shoes, and going to Urgent Care-”

“Oh, and what’s Grace gonna do, huh?” Steve only hesitated for a second, but he knew their only option that they were skirting around.

“Call Rachel,” At that Danny finally found some momentum, and began to pull on his socks and shoes with a speed Steve wouldn’t have considered him capable of in his present condition.

“That, my friend, is not happening,” Danny muttered, before striding towards the door. Steve flung his arm across the doorway with a thud and put on his most intimidating SEAL face. Danny could only hold his gaze for mere seconds before running a hand through his wild hair and conceding.

“Okay, here’s what we do-”

Danny needed ten more minutes of maneuvering before it was decided that Steve would drop him off at the ER and hang out with Grace pending a diagnosis. If it was serious, Steve had full permission to call Rachel. By the time they finished their argument, Grace was already halfway through a bowl of cereal, and made somber eye contact with Steve as they left.

Three hours later, Steve and Grace were in the middle of an epic Barbie game when Danny called.

“Just the flu. Said I’m probably not even contagious anymore.” He sounded smug even though his voice was more breathy and painful than the morning. Steve judged whether people were lying almost every day at work, so he was fairly confident in judging that Danny was telling the truth. Still, something felt off.

He and Grace came to pick Danny up and Steve’s eyes narrowed when he found Danny looking just as washed out and spacey as he had that morning, standing in the doorway of the medical center. Still, once he spotted his silver car driving up, he flashed a goofy thousand-watt smile at them.

“Got some good meds, I’m all set,” He declared, and Steve didn’t doubt there were drugs involved. “Hey, Steve, come back to my place. I’ll order in some food, my treat,” Danny suggested, as though the events of the morning hadn’t taken place. “How does pizza sound, Monkey?” Danny directed the question to Grace in the backseat, who seemed easily reassured by his return to coherence.

That night, after Steve and Grace consumed most of a pizza while Danny halfheartedly picked at a slice, they all curled up on the couch and watched The Incredibles on TV. Halfway through the movie, Grace fell dead asleep and Danny didn’t seem far behind.             

“Hey, Steve. Seriously, thanks for everything today,” Danny spoke up, suddenly sincere.

“Don’t mention it,” Steve says, surprised. As he tiptoed out at midnight when both members of the Williams family are fast asleep, he wondered how strangely natural it felt to slip into his indefinable role in their weird little family.

Steve was positive that he’d told Danny very firmly not to come in on Monday. Danny had even told him he would, the liar. Honestly, though, Steve couldn’t really blame him for dragging his ass in, since their latest case was all over the afternoon news. They’d all been sitting quietly at the headquarters when the words “killing spree” and “five civilians dead” hit the top news station, and the island flew into a wild panic. Steve had just gotten the call from the governor assigning them to the case when Danny blew through the door.

“They get this guy or it on us?” Danny asked. Steve surreptitiously examined him while grabbing some gear. He was pale and slightly diminished, but had a determined expression that made it so easy to overlook that fact. He was at least no longer clammy and shaky like he had been previously.

“He evaded SWAT, so we’re on it. Let’s head out,” Steve directed back at Kono and Chin, who both gave Danny quick, searching greetings before obeying.

“You’re with me,” Steve said, threateningly. They took only five steps before Steve began his reprimand in earnest.

“I thought I told you not to come in today.”

“And I thought I told all the criminals on this rock to take a rain check today, but…” Danny shrugged his shoulders sarcastically. “Besides, I’ve pretty much kicked whatever I had.” Steve only paused for a moment.

“Alright, let’s go catch this son of a bitch,” He said, flashing a hungry half smile.

The crime scene was bloody and eerily silent for a public park. The chatter of bustling police and the distant waves replaced the typical sounds of laugher and activity of a Hawaiian beach on a sunny day. To complete the picture, clouds crept in as they examined the evidence and interviewed eyewitnesses. Despite the public setting, very little could be ascertained about the killer from any of the numerous bystanders.

“This guy shoots at a dozen people in broad daylight and gets away with it,” Kono said after interviewing another useless witness, and shook her head, brow furrowed.

“He thinks he can get away with it,” Steve added. The four Five-O team members stood in a circle next to Danny’s car, hashing out a new game plan.

“That’s nice and all, but we have no leads right now. None,” Danny put in pessimistically. Just then, a woman’s voice cut through the crowd, and they all turned, reaching for their holsters upon hearing her yells.

“Five-O! No, no, let me through!” She shrieked through the barrier of SWAT officers.

“I can help, I know who did it!” She yelled. Steve raised his eyebrows.

“Maybe not,” He said. He immediately walked towards the police tape where two officers were nearly restraining her. Considering the fact that she was likely a foot taller than Danny and a pair of heavy boots, she ended up posing a challenge to the policemen.

“Hey, hey, we gonna consider any crazy lady who marches in here a lead now?” Danny yelled at Steve, who pointedly ignored him. He waved off the men, who slunk off muttering to each other.

“Are you an eyewitness, ma’am?” He asked her, and tears of relief spilled over her long eyelashes.

“No, I’m his wife, I’m the killer’s wife,” She croaked pleadingly. They all exchanged dubious looks except for Steve, who gazed at her with the laser focus that always sent a thrill of trouble down Danny’s spine.

“Are you sure about this?” Steve asked. She nodded.

“Okay, come with us then,” He said.

“He’s insane,” Danny said under his breath, to no one in particular.

As usual, however, Steve’s instincts were annoyingly accurate. The woman identified herself as Hazel Johnson, wife of Randy Johnson, who ended up having an impressive serial killer lair, complete with photographs of the park, a detailed game plan, and gun paraphernalia.

The team was collectively taken aback by the appalling lack of subtlety.

“I found this a week ago, but I never thought he’d actually…” Hazel apologized through tears.

Chin and Steve continued questioning Hazel while Kono and Danny continued to examine the room for any more clues about the mystery killer husband. Danny couldn’t help but let his mind wander a bit, as he noticed that the killer wrote his g’s just like Rachel did. Pretentious British handwriting, he thought fondly.

“Guys?” Steve called from the door. “He’s got a piece of property up the mountain, thirty miles from here.”

“Perfect,” Said Kono, when a thought occurred to Danny.

“Could you write down the address for us, please?” He asked. Steve gave him an impatient look.

“Sure,” Hazel replied eagerly, finding a notepad in the desk drawer. When she handed the paper back to him. 45 Grand View Road, with one of those swoopy g’s. Danny cleared his throat significantly.

“Thank you,” He said to her warmly. “Now, we’re going to need you to come in for further questioning, so you can ID your husband after we go through surveillance footage of the park,” Danny days, ignoring the teammate’s questioning looks as he sees the undeniable moment of panic he saw in Hazel’s eyes.

“They don’t have surveillance footage at that park,” She exclaimed.

“Oh, and you know that why?” Steve asked, catching on. He took one step towards her, and that’s when she bolted, slamming the door behind her and clicking the latch. Steve had excellent reflexes but she was fast and had disappeared around the corner in a flash.

“Danny, Kono, take the alley!” Steve huffed out and then disappeared as well.

Danny began sincerely wishing he hadn’t come in that day. He felt slow and sluggish, and running brought back his low-grade headache. After lunging through a bush, he and Kono began to run the length of the alley, noting that it was a dead end leading into a forest of dense trees. Danny heard a rustling to his right, from behind one of the closely built houses, and paused, waiting. Suddenly, Hazel burst out from the side of the adjacent house, clearly headed for the cover of the woods. Without thinking, Danny flung himself toward her in a tackle, bringing them both down. Hazel landed hard but recovered like lighting, and landed an elbow into Danny’s stomach that knocked the wind out of him. He staggered up after her, only to witness Kono dealing out a lethal roundhouse kick that sent Hazel straight back down. While the woman was momentarily stunned, Danny pinned and cuffed her.

Kono whipped out her cell and called Steve. “Got her.”

Within what felt like seconds, Steve pulled Danny’s car into the alley, Chin following closely behind.

“Nice work,” He said, pulling Hazel up like she was a ragdoll. “Book her, Danno,” He said with a self-satisfied smirk. 

“At least that’s sort of a new one,” Danny remarked to Steve, whose grin only widened. He led Hazel towards the cars. He was listing off her rights when, without warning, an intense pain hits his upper stomach.

“Anything you say can and will be used against you in…” He couldn’t find the words. He had to swallow hard against sudden intense nausea. “…a court of law,” he managed to finish the phrase, but found that the rest of it was blank.  He swallowed compulsively and shook his head as though it could keep the lightheadedness at bay.

“Chin, can you...?” Danny managed to say, and stepped back from Hazel.

“You okay?” Chin questioned, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“She needs her rights,” He said, hoping it was a sufficient answer.

“Steve, get over here!” Chin called, and Steve turned from his conversation with Kono, alert. Steve didn’t need to ask what was wrong, because all he needed was one look at Danny’s bloodless face and it told him all there was to know. Danny took a couple of unsteady steps and bent over his car, bracing himself on an elbow with his head against the warm metal, his other arm wrapped protectively under his ribcage.

“Danny, what’s wrong?” Steve asked, placing a steadying hand on Danny’s back.

“She got a hit in boss, to his abdomen, I think, right before we cuffed her,” Kono supplied.

“Steve, I need a ride to the hospital. I think I must have… broke something,” Danny sucked in a painful breath, and tried to straighten, but the pain increased tenfold with the movement, and his vision blurred.

“Chin, take her to HQ. I’m taking Danny,” Steve commanded. Kono, not needing further instruction, opened the car door and guided Danny gently into the backseat and slid in next to him. Steve leapt in to the driver’s seat and they screeched out. Immediately, Danny was listing towards the window, his eyes closing and opening sluggishly.

It took him and Kono both to maneuver him out of the car and towards the ER entrance. Once a nurse began to examine Danny, they lingered restlessly. Although Danny had managed to hold onto consciousness, Steve still thought he had seen corpses looking better than his partner.

“You said you experienced a blow to the stomach and intense pain afterwards?” She said, placing a hand under his ribs. She frowned, and Steve’s stomach sunk. “His spleen’s enlarged. He’s going to need an ultrasound,” She turned to address Danny. “Have you been experiencing any other symptoms?” Danny looked blank for a moment.

“The flu. Last week,” He said, closing his eyes through another wave of pain. The nurse just nodded, and excused herself quickly.

She returned flanked by a doctor.

“Mr. Williams, we’re going to admit you.” In a flurry of activity, Danny was attached to multitudes of machines. “You two, please step into the hall.” She addressed Steve and Kono, and proceeded to shepherd them away, while a disconcerting number of doctors began to surround Danny.  

“Is he gonna be okay?” Steve asked as soon as the nurse turned back to them in the busy hallway. The only thing keeping absolute urgency from his voice was the fact that he had seen the apologetic face of doctors giving grim news before a hundred times, but hers was far too calm.

“My best guess is that your partner has a ruptured spleen, but we won’t know until we do an ultrasound. His vitals are borderline, but not critical,” She explained while writing furiously on a chart. Steve was preparing himself to barrage her with more questions when his phone rang. Chin.

“She’s not talking. I need some backup in interrogation. How’s Danny?” Chin asked him several rapid-fire questions. Steve massaged his forehead in frustration.

“Danny’s okay at the moment. They don’t know anything for sure right now. I’ll be there in ten,” Steve replied.

“Boss, I can stick around here while you go,” Kono volunteered, peering anxiously around the doorway into the room where Danny was presumably undergoing a slew of medical procedures.

“No, I need you to examine the evidence back at the suspect’s house,” Steve said angrily, even though he absolutely hated the thought of Danny alone at the hospital.

“Got it,” Kono said, before hesitating. “But… Do you think we should call Rachel?”

“Yeah, but she’s on Maui with Stan this week,” Steve remembered suddenly. “Dammit.”

“Okay, let’s just close this case then,” Kono stated, and Steve felt a rush of gratitude for her putting it in in such simple terms. Put the perp behind bars, and then be there for his friend. Simple.

It turned out, maybe Steve should have thanked Danny for being in the hospital, because he ended up being so on edge when he stormed into the interrogation room that he actually got a confession in record time with only one flash of his manic, vindictive gaze.

When he returned to the hospital, he was directed towards a private room, where a sheet-white Danny was listening patiently to a doctor whose clinical demeanor conveyed nothing to Steve about the situation. He entered carefully into hearing distance, and heard something about another test and “extreme caution.” The doctor concluded his update, and exited, nodding politely at Steve as they intersected in the doorway. 

“Hey,” Steve said quietly. Danny’s grim expression smoothed into something closer to a smile upon seeing his partner enter.

“How’s it going?” Steve asked. He immediately felt stupid for asking, and could feel Danny gathering himself for a rant.

“Great, great. Except for the fact that one of my internal organs is apparently currently bleeding inside of me and they have surgeons on standby in case they need to gut me and rip the whole damn thing out. And the best part is that this all happened because I had to go and get a disease made for stupid horny teenagers,” Danny griped. What Danny’s rant lacked for his inability to gesture wildly for emphasis he made up in the sheer disgust in his tone.

“Uh, can you explain the bit where horny teenagers are relevant here?” Steve asked, amused, despite himself. Danny sighed heavily. Steve would have called him dramatic if he hadn’t been attached to half as many wires and tubes.

“See, apparently I tested positive for the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mono. The damn Kissing Disease. It made my spleen enlarged, so when that crazy woman took a swipe at me, that was it for good old Danny’s spleen.” Steve blinked.

“That actually… Explains a lot,” He said slowly, thinking back to the events of the last few weeks.

“Yes it does,” Danny said. He fingered his IV restlessly and glanced away. “So, I’m guessing you called Rachel.”

“I did. She should know-”

“Of course, I know, I get it,” Danny broke in impatiently. Steve was suddenly frustrated at Danny, busted spleen or not.

“Look, I don’t get it. Rachel isn’t the devil or something, she cares about you-”

“Oh, I know she cares. That’s the problem Steve! She cares so much about how often I’m in trouble that the next thing I know she can’t handle it anymore and she’s busting my balls about custody,” Danny winced and dragged a cautious hand to his abdomen, cutting his tirade short.

“Danny, listen to me. Rachel is a smart woman; she knows you’re a great father. Anyone can see that.  Just let the people who love you help you!” Steve said, without considering how it sounded. The air in the room was thick with tension until Danny let out a slow breath and closed his eyes.

“Okay,”

What felt like ages later to the remaining members of Five-0, Danny was finally cleared to return to work, if not active duty. Ten o’clock on that Monday morning found Chin, Kono and Steve caught in a dreary mood, working tediously on the less romantic aspects of police work; namely, they took calls and signed paperwork. The atmosphere had been generally subdued since Danny had been gone, so when the door opened to reveal their absent member, it felt like they all collectively let out a breath they hadn’t noticed they were holding. Steve leapt from his office in an instant.

The way Danny swaggered into the room as though it were any other Monday was especially impressive considering that he must have dropped ten pounds on the outside in the last few weeks.

“Wow, looks like everyone’s been hard at work,” Danny quipped, regarding the fact that, upon his entrance, his teammates had basically dropped everything.

“What can we say, we missed you around here!” Kono said, giving him a hug.

“So I’m guessing no one had the heart to help a guy out with the pile of paper that’s probably stacked to the ceiling in on my desk then?” Danny asked.

“Even better, actually,” Steve replied, beaming, and pointed to Danny’s office. Intrigued, Danny peeked into the door. On the far window was a sign that said “Congrats on Keeping Your Spleen!” and his desk was completely clean save for his computer.


End file.
